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ALTFI GLOBAL SUMMIT 2017

TUESDAY 7TH NOVEMBER 2017

HET SIERAAD, DE BAARSJES, AMSTERDAM

Highlights

A sincere thank you to all those who attended and supported the AltFi Global Summit 2017!

On the eve of PSD2 (and Open Banking in the UK), the AltFi Global Summit brought together Europe's best-known online lenders and digital banking disruptors for a forensic examination of what the future of these fintech niches will look like. Hot topics included cross-selling strategies, practical use cases of PSD2 data, the appetite of robo-advisors and traditional fixed income investors for online loans, and, of course, Brexit.

Opening keynote

Jeroen Broekema, Managing Director The Netherlands, Funding Circle

Funding Circle’s Broekema said the firm is still seeing strong growth as it continues to solve ‘the funding gap’. He says the firm will likely move to new countries in the coming years, with Estonia looking particularly interesting as a new destination.

Broekema says fintech lending is swelling fast with 20 per cent of new mortgage lending done by non-bank lending in Netherlands.

Mieke van Engelen, Head of Innovative Partnerships, New10

Van Engelen says ABN AMRO, New10’s parent company, is looking to digitise its businesses and says partnerships are essential to the “new norm’. She said that while this could potentially ‘ be eating away at our SME lending business…if [they] don’t someone else will.

She says one key feature is to aim to let the customer know within 15 mins whether they can get a loan.

Bueninck said ‘behavioural’ data is becoming more important for Klarna and the firm has 80 per cent of the Swedish market in its data sets.

Kreditech’s Boerner says defaults and risk is lower in the online world as firms and lenders have additional data points not available in the retail world.

Billie’s CEO Knecht said his firm even assesses whether people spell their name correctly or whether they capitalise their name.

Why phase two of Open Banking is a game–changer for fintech

Rob Haslingden, Head of Propositions and Product Marketing, Experian

Haslingden urged the audience to reconsider credit bureaus as part of ‘the establishment’. He says Experian will launch a new platform to garner new data and has already partnered with a number of fintechs.

Stakeholders, he says, will have to motivate customers to share new data by proving them with value. He also warned an ‘arms race’ is emerging for analytics owing to the emergence of AI and machine learning.

Will Europe's robo–advisors ever invest in marketplace loans?

The panellists agreed that robo-advisors are likely to invest in marketplace loans within the next 2-5 years. Toms Niparts, who runs Viventor, very much welcomed the interest, emphasising the need for diversifying capital bases.

IG is actively looking at how it might offer exposure to the asset class for its wealth clients, but for now it is a question of how to structure such an offering.

Even at an early stage, Fountain Money's Nishil Parekh likes the idea of investing via online lenders, stressing the benefits of fintech partnerships more broadly as a means of maximising customer value.

CMIS Group's Sean Daly is focused on helping originators sharpen their processes, readying them for institutional investment - and possibly for robo-investment - while also helping investors reach a level of comfort with what remains a nascent asset class.

Operating a Pan–European marketplace: Challenges and opportunities

Patrick de Nonneville, Chief Operating Officer, Lendix

Patrick de Nonneville believes European retail investors are used to higher risk than institutions, which should bode well for continued adoption of the asset class, at least among retail investors, but that institutions are more conservative.

He argues, however, that being successful in France means its success can be replicated across other markets but pricing is more attractive in some areas such as Spain, less so in the Netherlands.

Dr. Daniel Bartsch, MD of creditshelf said there is currently no secondary market but a pan-European trading platform could add value for institutional investors.

Anne Hakvoort, Partner, FG Lawyers, believes the real problem for online platforms is that every EU member state has different rules which is hugely expensive. “It needs to be aligned… A secondary market is just a matter of time,” she said.

The view from afar: Are the world's biggest fintechs eyeing up Europe?

Orchard Platform’s Rochkind says American firms servicing European clients will have to get used to GDPR or be prepared to lose 4 per cent in fines.

Kabbage’s Taussig meanwhile says US funds are increasingly looking to buy marketplace loans, including closed end portfolios and Business Development Companies (BDCs).

About AltFi

Altfi provides market-leading news, insights and data on the rapidly growing alternative finance and fintech world. Our core focus is on alternative lenders, including both peer-to-peer/marketplace lenders and direct lenders as well as investment in alternative credit, equity crowdfunding, challenger banks and robo-advice. In addition, AltFi runs major industry conferences and seminars globally, and our sister company AltFi Data is widely regarded as the premier source of institution-grade analytics for alternative finance.